Let them eat cake: a 2008 tale

Back in the late 18th Century in a once great power with overseas wars, economic might, and the defeat of their main rival for world influence taken down by a small nation there were a class of people who took from the treasury to enrich themselves. In this time, the poor were told that they should be happy being told how to behave by those in power, since the rich and powerful enjoyed the blessings of the almighty, or else they would also be wretched and poor like the factory workers. Even the elite of this time made patronizing remarks about the need for the poor to change their habits and sacrifice since times were so bad, such as telling starving Parisians to eat cake(a more expensive good) since they could not afford cheaper sustaining bread.

Fast forward to 2008 in the United States and see that history once again repeats itself. The most militarily and economically powerful nation is engulfed in two overseas wars, their main rival for world influence(the Soviet Union) was defeated just about a decade ago by upstarts in a tiny piece of land, and leeches in suits are draining the treasury to line their own pockets. In this modern time the churches of materialism(also known as megachurches) tell the faithful that wealth is a sign of being blessed and that those who are poor are not blessed. Now the aristocrats changed their titles from Marquess to Senior Executive, but the same dynamic holds true. Let me past this quote from a spokesmouth for welfare queen AIG to bring home the point:

Nicholas Ashooh, AIG's senior vice president of communication, acknowledges that the perception of his company has taken a hit.

"Oh, it's terrible, it's terrible," he told CBS News.

Ashooh said the retention program does not include anyone in the firm's financial products business, the tiny arm of the company that torpedoed AIG with its high-risk, bad loans.

"We know that this is not a popular thing. A lot of people just won't accept it, but if you think about it, it's a calculated decision to keep businesses intact so that we can sell them and pay back taxpayers what we owe them," he said.

The translation: we screwed up the world's financial system and are rewarding top executives but you should trust us with money that you worked hard for since we know what is best. If you let us take $115 billion and dole it to top management, who will probably leave anyhow, it's in your best interest. Oh, while you are at it, pay some interest for our largesse (bonds are not free money after all) and enjoy it. There's a Santayana saying that keeps getting stuck in my head right now.

Getting Drunk on The Taxpayer's Money AIG Style

Apparently billions of dollars in the past two weeks has not been enough to satiate the pirate at AIG, as they are now tapping on a paper purchasing agreement from the Fed worth up to ten billion dollars. The same company that took 87 billion, or $87,000,000,000 of my money and your money, then received an additional 37.8 billion, and now they want a little extra time at he government trough.

Why is a company too big to fail? In a country where for years the economic mantra has been that "free market capitalism is the best way to achieve wealth" there should be riots in the streets over such government intervention. Instead, the corporate fascism is accepted as though government actually has power to do good for the economy. The problem is that government cannot effectively decide what 300 million people want on a daily basis, and no corporation can do so either. If the people do not want to invest in companies because they are illiquid, then government can only delay the problem because they cannot make every illiquid company liquid so that investors will flock to financials. If only someone actually advocated personal responsibility in DC...

Another day, another bit of corporate welfare.

Apparently the executives at American International Gang got a new nearly $40 billion dollar loan from the Weimar Republic, I meant the US Federal Reserve. This comes after they were reported to have blown $400k on a spa day which you and I paid for.

Here are some quotes from de Tocqueville as he toured the nascent America for you to contemplate against the backdrop of the rape of the American experiment by the suits on Wall Street:


"In towns it is impossible to prevent men from assembling, getting excited together and forming sudden passionate resolves. Towns are like great meeting houses with all the inhabitants as members. In them the people wield immense influence over their magistrates and often carry their desires into execution without intermediaries." Compare that to the closed door meethings between energy companies and the government which end up with more powerful companies and more gouged consumers.

""The American Republic will endure until the day Congress discovers that it can bribe the public with the public's money."" No more needs to be said.

Think about those two ideas when you hear about how dangerous certain ideas are from different candidates or about how we taxpayers must give our hard earned money to billionaires. If this is a free, capitalist society, I would not want to know what a socialist one is like.

This is the face of America's downfall.
(Former AIG CEO Martin Sullivan)